Lab Members

Jaap de Roode

Professor of Biology

Jaap received his MSc in Population Biology from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and his PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He is interested in the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, and currently studies infectious diseases of monarch butterflies, honey bees and humans.

Erik Edwards

Greenhouse manager

Erik obtained a Bachelor of Agricultural Sciences at the University of Georgia and has worked as grower at several commercial greenhouses. Since November 2017, he has been in charge of the Biology Department’s greenhouse, facilitating monarch butterfly work in the de Roode and Gerardo labs.

Zoe Zimmerman

Lab manager

Zoe received her BS in Biology from Emory University. She is the Research Specialist for the de Roode and Gerardo labs. Her interests include the role of species interactions in evolution and disease resistance.

Nadya Muchoney

NSF Postdoctoral Fellow

Nadya obtained her PhD from the University of Nevada, Reno, where she studied the role of host plant chemistry in anti-viral immunity in butterfly hosts. She is currently investigating how milkweed chemicals shape monarch midgut microbiomes, and how midgut microbes contribute to resistance against a protozoan parasite.

Ehsan Sanaei

Postdoctoral Researcher

Ehsan obtained his PhD from the University of Queensland, and carried out postdoctoral research at Griffith University. His main interests involve insect-microbe interactions. Having studied Wolbachia endosymbionts in scale insects, he is now using monarch butterflies to study the role of gut microbes in driving resistance to parasite infection.

Mitchell Kendzel

PBEE Graduate Student

Mitchell obtained his MSc in Biology from the University of Cincinnati and is currently a PhD student in Emory’s PBEE program. His work has focused on movement ecology and sensory biology. His current research interests are using the monarch butterfly as a model to study how parasitism interferes with animal migration and the influence this has on the development of sedentary populations.

Mackenzie Hoogshagen

PBEE Graduate Student

Mackenzie obtained her BSc in Biology from the University of Central Arkansas and is currently a PhD student in Emory’s PBEE program. Her work focuses on chemical ecology and budget energy modeling. She is interested in understanding how climate change may alter host-parasite interactions, and uses monarch butterflies, their milkweed plants and their protozoan parasites as a model system.

Gabe DuBose

PBEE Graduate Student

Gabe obtained his MS in bioinformatics at Georgia Tech and is currently a PhD student in the Population Biology, Ecology, and Evolution program at Emory. Gabe’s work focuses on understanding how ecological and environmental factors influence organismal development. He uses the interaction between monarch butterflies, their protozoan parasite, and the milkweeds they feed on as a model system to study how an organism’s ecology influences its development at the molecular level.

Lydia Fuller-Hall

Research Specialist

Lydia graduated from Emory University with a biology and English double major. Lydia is interested in the role of microbes in driving disease resistance. Lydia is using antibiotics to disrupt microbial gut communities of monarch butterflies to study the role of gut microbes in conferring resistance to a protozoan parasite infection.

Markelle Worrell

SURE Summer Research Student

Markelle is biology major at Georgia State University, and joined the SURE program to study the role of milkweed chemicals in providing resistance to parasite infection in monarch butterflies.